Coll 6/9 'Jeddah Reports Jany 1931–' [‎356r] (712/802)

Turkey.
61. The new Turkish Charge d Affaires, Lutfullah Bey, arrived in Jedda
on the 5th September, but the presentation of his credentials was held up for two
months by the state of his pancreas.
IV.—Am Matters.
Uejaz Air Force.
62. Mr. Lowe, the last of the four British pilots, and six mechanics selected
by the Air Ministry in 1929 for Ibn Sand's new air force, was eventually got rid
of in September. As already reported (July-August report, paragraph 67), he
had re-engaged himself on the 24th August under a clandestine contract with
the Director-General of Military Affairs. When required for work at the
aerodrome at the beginning of September, however, he reported sick with ear
trouble. He was treated as a malingerer and publicly insulted by the Turkish
corporal, his contractor. He sought the assistance of His Majesty’s Charge
d’Affaires on the 6th September. Mr. Hope Gill took up the matter with Taif,
and, as a result, learned on the 8th that the Hejazi Government had decided to
cancel the new contract. This was both legal and acceptable, but another ten
days was spent in somewhat acrimonious debate before getting the local police
surveillance raised (it had been imposed by Hamdi Bey to prevent Mr. Lowe’s
departure from the country), and before extracting this now distraught pilot
from the toils of the enquiry which followed the crash of a machine on the
13th September (see paragraph 6). He was got away, with his arrears of pay,
on the 20th September, incontinently declaring, for reasons known only to
himself, that he would return in three months. There was unfeigned relief in
both British and Hejazi circles at this final liquidation of the unsuitable 1929
personnel.
63. Conversations continued meanwhile concerning new personnel for the
air force. Referring to the memorandum which had been communicated to the
Hejazi Government on the 7th July (July-August report, paragraph 68),
the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs on the 1st September answered the three
subsidiary points then raised by His Majesty's Minister. He stated that he had
referred all three pointft to Ibn Saud, who had replied uncompromisingly that
(1) matters of discipline were of purely Hejazi concern; (2) he could not permit
any arrangement whereby the new personnel might procure alcoholic liquor: and
(3) the question of failure to pay salaries when due did not arise, since the terms
of the contract would be faithfully observed. The first and third of these answers
were somewhat softened by Fuad Bey, who promised to reply shortly to the
memorandum itself. Meanwhile the events described in paragraph 13
supervened.
64. Instead of making a written reply, Fuad Bey gave His Majesty’s
Charge d’Affaires a message on the 19th September from Ibn Saud to His
Majesty's Government, to the effect that he would like to know how soon new
personnel could be sent out, and that he regarded the option enjoyed by the
previous personnel, to resign in the event of war, as incompatible with his present
need (that of bombing the Imam Yahya, no doubt); he therefore asked for its
omission from the new contracts. Fuad Bey also asked that, in view of the
urgency of the matter, the new contracts, modified from the old in the above sense
only, be sent to Jedda with the new personnel, for signature on arrival.
65. In transmitting this message to His Majesty's Government, His
Majesty's Charge d Affaires summarised the situation which underlay it. As far
as could be judged at Jedda, Ibn Saud was simultaneously faced by a state of
lawlessness and disaffection in the Northern Hejaz, the possibility of a
resurrection of the Rashidi power at Hail, disaffection throughout Nejd at
stricter taxation in place of the customary largesse, insurrection in Asir, abetted
and utilised by the Imam Yahya, and latent but bitter hostility in the towns of
the Hejaz. If this maximum estimate were to be discounted by half, Ibn Saud
was still faced with a formidable situation, to meet which he had unimpaired
military prestige, much impaired political prestige, less Wahhabi fervour to back
him and no money. If he could at once have two pilots with full power to use
them as he wished, it would assist him, but it could hardly prove decisive, except
perhaps to frighten the Imam into terms. Their effect on his subjects evervwhere